Got a survey on behalf of my physician. Now, I've been a patient for over 25 years. But from the sound of the questioning, he is considering closing his primary care operation and going to a concierge, cash-only physician operation ("Royal Pains" style, if you're familiar with the tv show). So, if he does, he'll have the cream of the local populace, and us who rely on private insurance and Medicare will be looking for another doctor.

Interesting tidbit, though the mainstream healthcare industry in slightly more socialized countries like Britain are a sewer, ancillary services like plastic surgery and chiropractics see boom times. The obvious reason being.g gubmint control makes things crappy.

My doctor went to MDVIP about five years ago and I signed up immediately. I have never regretted it. In fact, I just had my annual yesterday!

Two years ago I was really sick on Christmas Day. I called the MDVIP emergency number and asked to leave a message for Dr._____. The voice on the other end said, "This is Dr. ______" He called every pharmacy in town until he found one that was open on Christmas.

On my last doctor visit, I needed them to contact the Medicare Advantage plan about a prescription the MA now wants pre-authorized. I have been taking the prescript about 6 years and the MA has paid the last 3 years with no problem.

Anyway, mention of the need for pre-authorization set my doctor into a rant. He complained about the insurance co’s and drug co’s frequently changing their procedures and policies. He said it was enough to make him think about early retirement.

I am apprehensive that when more Obamacare policies and procedures go into effect next year, more doctors will opt for earlier retirement. And the patients will be left at the mercy of the Obamacare bureaucracy.

Opens up so many options for docs and patients. I heard of one who would charge 2 thousand bucks a year - first 500 patients who pay him get in - and he’ll go everything they need. When their care requires more than he can provide, he’ll hook them up with specialist. He knows he gets a million a year to run his office - no paperwork - and patients get what they need.

Damn, the free market. Who’d a thunk it?

11
posted on 04/16/2013 3:24:24 PM PDT
by C. Edmund Wright
(Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)

Government can clamp down on people as much as they want, but people will innovate. One is reminded of a scene from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago in which he witnessed a man and a woman successfully engaging in an intimate act through the barbed wire that separated their two prison camps.

Of course, it will be used to stir up class resentment in a push for yet more healthcare socialism. Imagine, richies paying pet doctors to cater to their every whim, treating them for gout and designer drug addiction while malnourished children die waiting for the care that were the more fortunate in it with the rest of us would be subsidized.

If you can't afford it, ask him if you can pay what you can, he probably isn't heartless and you could get some if not all of his services pro-bono. It maybe a win-win, you both think Obamacare is a pile of Suckage, and he is willing to have you in his merry gang to metaphorically thumb your nose at lear deader...

What in Creation are you complaining about? Are you so selfish that you're not sleeping better at night knowing that neither Osama Obama,Bella Pelosi nor Dirty Harry (nor their family members) will ever have to wait 10 seconds or pay a single dime of *their* money to obtain the finest health care available on earth.Canadians can wait up to six months for certain heart operations and *routinely* wait for six months for a hip replacement (I waited 11 days for mine).I know this because I looked it up on a Canadian government website.All this...and worse...will be happening here within a few years.But not for the rich,powerful or connected.My other hip is starting to get bad...I think I might rush the operation before the full effect of OsamaObamaCare kicks in.

Forbes had an article on these concierge services a couple weeks ago. People pay as little as $60/mo. for all basic services...most are a bit higher. The danger to the socialists is that middle income and young people will start to flock to these if they catch on.

It seems they are particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest which is interesting because that's where Kaiser has a strong presence. Competition for their business perhaps?

I saw an area TV news report just a few weeks ago about several doctors who have opened a similar kind of clinic in Oklahoma City. They seem to be very successful and are planning on expanding into other locations.

==

As others have posted, look for the FED/States to find a way to regulate those.

Before I joined MDVIP I made my doctor sign an oath that he would never treat poor people, that he would never let anyone park next to me, that his office staff would never make direct eye contact, that he would always exit the examining room backward in my presence, and that his nurse would act out my wildest fantasies. (Sure hope that insect Slyballious never finds out).

"The only thing I'm actually sorta good at is referrals. You know that thing where doctors send patients to other doctors. Well, I'm the king of referrals. What I do is I call the, uh, the sick person into my office, and I stare for a long time really seriously at this blank sheet of paper. Then I say, "Hmmm. I'd like you to see someone. He's a specialist in this area." (laughs) There are specialists who have their whole career based on my referrals. I am the cornerstone of a medical empire."

I have also wondered if the solution to high healthcare cost is not giving everybody insurance but giving nobody insurance.

Suppose the US did something like this:

Some real tort reform to eliminate frivolous malpractice lawsuits.

Provided scholarships to medical students (Instead of student loans) so that anyone who scored high enough on the MSAT could go to medical school

In return for this Doctors be required to lower their fee

Eliminate Insurance so that doctors set their fees based upon what people could pay not what the insurance could pay. Right now the insurance payments skew the cost system. - But and this is a big but - They must offer free consultations on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesday of every month and any referral given on those Tuesdays are taken by the specialist at no charge.

This would give those who need care but cannot pay about 2 1/2 days a month for doctor visits. It would also allow cheapskates who have money to go stand in line if they wished.

Lastly and this is also a big issue:
Allow some medical procedures like basic physicals, children’s vaccinations, and consultations for continuing medications for conditions like hypertension or the ubiquitous prostate issues men have to be done by Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants giving doctors time to deal with more urgent or critical matters. This could even apply to things like X-rays and basic triage.

These steps would significantly lower the cost of medical attention without reducing the quality

Lots' of doctors are going to do what your doctor's doing... ObamaCare will create a 3rd world system for health care in the US. Money will be part of it - and some of it will be 'who you know' and what connections they have. Isn't that charming?

Elites won't have to worry about all those middle class people and their kids filling up the waiting rooms. NOPE, only the best for elites now... Elites will pay a ‘membership fee’ on top of doctor visit fees. Like belonging to a country club - you pay to get in then you pay other fees....

And for the rest of us? It'll be long waits, affirmative action ‘doctors’ and people with two year degrees making medical calls. Welcome to the crap people in Communist countries and hellholes have had to put up with for years...Oh - and our congresscritters - jerks in both parties - they'll have the best. No middle class 'target shopper types' to put up with...

Oh my, was it win-win for everyone. He kept I think 500-1000 of his best patients. Not the richest, just the ones he knew he could help, and charged a rather nominal fee per month for the "membership". The patients paid with insurance or cash.

He had to deal with a few "stragglers" that would call him off hours, but in general the patients were given the time and attention they needed.

It was a treat as a physician to have 45 uninterrupted minutes with a patient, get to know them and not rush out of the room to complete some assinine EMR template.

He keeps asking me to come back and be his partner, but I've got a job closer to home.

Maybe I'll retire to something like this.

It's the kind of medicine I had hoped to practice. Caring, compassionate, and rewarding emotionally and financially.

It isn’t just me or the neighbors. A ton of people at my husband’s job don’t have a GP now either. The doctor that purchased my GP’s practice... well, let’s just say that I saw him once. I wouldn’t bring my dogs to him for vaccinations. I fear this stuff is just beginning to happen... the future doesn’t look bright at all. IMHO.

Even if the Doctors do that people will still have to buy insurance even if they don’t use it and pay cash for their doctor visits. The only people who will be undermined are the people who can’t find a doctor but will still have to buy insurance.

Seems like a win win for Obamacare if you ask me since it never was about health per say just money to the government in the way of taxes and fees If you don’t purchase what they tell you to in this case Insurance.

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